Monday, October 24, 2011

Indian Television: Star One Goes Bonkers With Its Revamp Mantra to Star Desh

If CHANGE is a MANTRA then Star One seems to be at the forefront of change and that too constant change. The revolving door is very much a fashion at this Star TV's Hindi GEC channel with a revamp on the cards every single year ever since its inception.

Unable to climb the popularity chart or stick to the audience pie it has garnered for itself, Star One seems to believe that shedding its kilos of overweight in terms of outdated programming is the method to the madness of Indian Television's Hindi GEC's and will help gain them a foothold in the Television Viewership Ratings(TVR) that TAM and INTAM bring out on Indian Television.

Sadly, Star One seems to miss the bus every time with its multitude of revamps still keeping it well below the 50 TVR points while their parent network GEC Star Plus seems to be the top of the TVR and TRP leader board. No matter what it does, Star One seems to fail in its mission impossible of capturing the audience or also in its reach and availability.

Predominantly started as an urban youth channel, Star One started to fall prey to the vagaries of the changing domestic landscape of Indian television that is all about dripping diamonds from the ears and bucketloads of tears from the eyes and mummies and aunties stuck to TV for lifetimes.

Sadly, this is not the case with Star One. It's niche has always been and will always be an urban net savvy audience who if miss watching it on Television will switch on their computers, laptops, and get online to catch their favorite episode on Star Player, youtube, desitv, india-forums, apni community or the plethora of web sites who've made it their business to capture or video grab the episodes and provide links or port them on to their web sites.

Today even Sony Entertainment Television (SET) that has made big progress in the past few months has realized the importance of the net savvy women audience of this 21st century and is trying to capture and keep the consumer happy and tie-in to their brand by making available all their episodes on their official online web portal.

To keep these net savvy audience engaged, channels have recognized the importance of keeping this consumer base engaged even when they are not beaming the episodes live by investing in online discussion forums, as well as providing a well laid out archive of episodes to revisit.

Star One always seems to start off things with a bang that pilfer out over a period of time, which could be due to several factors. Programming is not the only issue here, it is also a basic lack of understanding of their emerging consumer base and their evolving entertainment needs that instead of consolidating and growing their current or existing consumer base seems to always search for a new and untapped customer market.

By clubbing themselves with the vision and dynamics of their parent Hindi GEC Star Plus, Star One or Star Desh is going to lose a huge fanbase that is slowly shifting to Sony Entertainment Television that has realized the huge potential of this consumer base and is capitablizing on this urban and emerging new woman and youth.

Star TV, Star One or Star Desh will miss the bus if they do not realize the golden opportunities that are just opening up on the Indian Television firmament with the new woman, and youth that are e-empowered and internet savvy while also give the television set a go.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the writer who can be contacted via Rangmunch TV with mails addressed to him - thanks Rangmunch TV

this was a very needed article am so glad someone said this - Star one from its launch had actually managed to bring in a great niche content - with the likes of sarabhai v/s sarabhai and siddhant - next when they went youth centric with shows like MJHT and DMG i dont even need to explain the kind of craze these shows set in the youth however what baffles me is what are the channel heads seriously thinking from remix to today - the shows this channel has churned out since its inception are really diff and like rightly put across in this article perfectly catering to the kind of audience who catch em via mediums like youtube and other sites - at the launch of this channel Star group had so proudly announced we arent looking for numbers here but we aim to provide niche content seems like they have eaten their own words over and over again with each revamp

When they last revamped shows like MJHT DMG and even Geet - a show I detest - managed to get em ratings and make stars out of the actors who worked in all these shows yet sadly the channel wasnt pleased with even this - ending MJHT and DMG so crassly cost them Star one totally and now again this new revamp to me doesnt seem like it can be their winning ticket - Bilingual shows really ???!!! do they think this will work for them now with a new name Star Desh *tsk tsk* - nope i dont think so - who would care to give a damn about a channel who isnt even sure of its own content and keeps on revamping at a gap of 3 years always !!

The channel had so much potential in its niche area, but looks like they don't want to stay there. A very good article coming at the right time. Thanks Rangmunch TV for bringing for featuring such an analytical article in a timely manner.